Luke tented his fingers. He was looking at Adrienne longingly, she thought, but then she realized that he was eyeing the empty shot glass in her hands. He wanted his tequila.
“How old are you, Adrienne?” Darla asked.
“Twenty-eight.”
“And Luke is twenty-nine!” Darla said. “He’s our youngest.”
“And our nuttiest,” Grayson piped in. “It was a hard lesson but I finally learned that our three boys were not mined from the same quarry. This guy”-and here he pounded Luke on the shoulder-“is a free spirit.”
“Josh and Timmy are more traditional,” Darla said.
“They’re into wearing suits and paying alimony,” Luke said.
“Okay, well,” Adrienne said. “I’ll get you another tequila. Darla, Grayson, can I bring you anything else right now?”
“Just yourself, when you have a minute,” Darla said.
Adrienne stopped at the bar to order another tequila and then met Thatcher at the podium. Everyone from first was down.
“I think Darla is trying to set me up with her son,” Adrienne said.
“Oh, I know she is,” Thatcher said. “For years she’s been wondering if he’s gay. She told me on Tuesday that it was her intention to introduce him to you.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said, ‘Good luck. I hear she’s very picky.’ ”
Adrienne swatted him. “Not picky enough.”
“I want to have a meeting after closing tonight,” Thatcher said.
“A meeting?”
“On the beach outside my office.”
“Because of Mario?”
“Morale booster,” he said. “It’s mandatory. Please spread the word.”
No one on the staff expressed enthusiasm about a mandatory meeting at one o’clock in the morning. Joe looked at Adrienne cross-eyed; Spillman claimed he had a date with his wife at Cioppino’s.
“Morale booster?” he said. “What are we going to do-have a sing-along around the campfire?”
Caren, who was standing right there, said, “Thatch likes to give a little speech when the first person burns out.” She nudged Spillman. “Last year, remember, when Bruno lost his shit on that woman with the alligator shoes, Thatch gave us the talk and we all got a raise?”
“True,” Spillman said.
Tyler Lefroy asked if there would be beer. Adrienne was too afraid to tell anyone in the kitchen about the meeting; she would make Thatcher handle that.
Between their appetizer and entrée, Adrienne visited the Parrishes again. She had to admit, Luke Parrish fascinated her, not because of anything he said or did, but because he was so different from Darla and Grayson. He was a revolutionary. He’d ordered the mixed green salad with beets, and the ravioli; he was a vegetarian. And now, after two beers and three shots of tequila, Adrienne could tell he was getting drunk. His posture was falling apart. He was slumped in his seat.
“How’s everyone doing here?” Adrienne asked. Again, the empty glass of tequila had been pushed to the edge of the table, and Adrienne picked it up and held it discreetly at her side. “Would you like another?” she asked Luke.
“No more tequila,” Grayson said.
Luke sank a little lower in his chair. Adrienne was afraid he might slip under the table. Darla, for the first time ever, seemed distressed. She looked at Luke imploringly, as though she wanted him to speak. He was not picking up whatever signal she was trying to send. She laughed.
“Well, I suppose I might as well say it. Adrienne, Luke would like to take you out to dinner on your night off. He’d like to take you to Cinco.”
Luke put both his hands on the table and Adrienne noticed he was wearing a silver pinkie ring. What to say? That she didn’t normally go out with men who had their mothers ask? Luke pushed himself out of the chair. “I have to piss,” he said, and he propelled himself toward the men’s room.
Darla pretended not to have heard this last declaration. She smiled at Adrienne. “I hear Cinco has wonderful tapas.”
Adrienne glanced around the dining room. There were no emergencies calling her name, and there was no one available to save her. She lowered herself into Luke’s vacant seat.
“Thank you for thinking of me,” she said. “But I’m already seeing someone.”
Darla put her hand to her throat. She looked stunned. “Who?”
Adrienne took another look around. She felt the way a criminal must feel just before breaking the law. She was going to tell Darla and Grayson the truth-tell them because she wanted to-even though she could feel indiscretion coating her tongue like a film.
“Thatcher.”
“No!” This came from Grayson.
“Thatcher?” Darla said. “You and Thatcher?”
“That’s a dead-end street, my girl,” Grayson said. “A dead… end… street.” He picked up his wineglass and swirled his white burgundy aggressively. “Let me ask you a question. Why would someone as beautiful and smart and charming as yourself pick someone like Thatcher? Don’t you want stability? A house? Children? Don’t you want, someday, to be one of these soccer moms with everything in its place?”
“I thought you liked Thatcher,” Adrienne said. “I thought you loved him.”
Darla put her hand on top of Adrienne’s hand. “Thatcher is a dear, sweet fellow and one of our very favorites. But he’s a restaurant person.”
Adrienne felt her temper rear up, though she knew they had arrived at this place in the conversation because of her own stupidity. “So am I.”
“Why, one of the first things you told us is that you’ve never worked in restaurants. You said this was just another adventure. You aren’t like the other people who work here. You aren’t like them at all.”
“Restaurants are as risky as the theater,” Grayson said. “They’re as derelict as television. It’s a volatile and transient life. It’s goddamned make-believe.”
“Honey, now you’re being dramatic,” Darla said.
“Am I?” Grayson pitched forward in his chair. “What do your parents think of this?”
“My parents?” Adrienne panicked. She didn’t want to answer a question about her parents. She wanted to defend restaurant people and restaurant life and all the exciting, diverse, and enriching aspects of it. She wanted to tell them that she was as happy as she’d ever been in her life because of this restaurant. But instead, Adrienne did what any good restaurant person would have done. She salvaged the moment.
“I really love you two,” she said. She flashed them her biggest, toothiest smile. “Thank you for the vote of confidence. And if I ever come across a good prospect for Luke, I’ll let you know.” She stood up and touched Darla’s shoulder. “Your dinners will be out shortly.”
Adrienne dropped off the empty glass at the bar, picked up her flute of Laurent-Perrier, and returned to the podium. The podium was her home.
At twelve thirty that night, Thatcher slipped through the throng at the bar holding the cash box and wad of receipts close to his chest.
“I’m going to eat,” he said.
Adrienne had just finished a stack of crackers. Hector had brought them out to her, along with the news that Mario was still MIA.
“No news is good news,” Hector said. “They find him in his Durango at the bottom of Gibbs Pond, that’s bad news.”
Forty minutes later, Duncan rang the hand bell. The decibel level in the bar increased; the frenzy for one more drink looked like the scenes shown on TV of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Guests’ hands shot in the air, waving money. In her change purse, Adrienne had four hundred dollars in tips. Two hundred of it had been palmed to her by Grayson Parrish, possibly as an apology for his tirade, but more likely an apology for Luke’s bizarre and ultimately miserable behavior. He hadn’t returned from the men’s room for a long time and Grayson was forced to check on him. Luke had vomited and was trying to clean up the mess with toilet paper. Adrienne sent Tyler Lefroy into the men’s room with the mop (why did he get all the foul jobs, he wanted to know) and Grayson led Luke back to the table, where he stared down his ravioli but didn’t eat a bite. This is who you want me to go out with? Adrienne thought. This is your idea of stability?